By Dr. JACOB SIMET
On November 16 1982 the UNESCO General Assembly adopted the Convention on World Heritage. This year will mark 25 years of the life of this Convention, which sets out basically to protect the cultural and natural heritage of humanity.
Prior to the adoption of the Convention, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) had been concerned about many cultural heritage sites being threatened all around the world and promoting the need to protect them.
At the same time in the United States there was growing concern about the need to protect 'the world's superb natural and areas and historic sites for the present and the future of the world citizenry', which was spearheaded by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The decision to have an international instrument to protect the world's cultural and natural heritage was cognizant of the way in which people interact with nature, and the fundamental need to preserve the balance between the two.
While ICOMOS and the IUCN had their plans to develop international agreements, there was one situation which more-or-less forced the speedy development of the convention; the threat to the Abu Simbel temples in Egypt.
In the 1950s there were plans to build the Aswan dam in Egypt, which would have flooded the valley containing the temples.
After appeals from some governments in 1959 UNESCO launched an international safeguarding campaign to save the temples.
Archeological research in the area to be flooded was stepped up and most importantly the temples were dismantled and moved to higher ground and reassembled. This campaign and effort cost about US$ 80 million, a large part of which came from many concerned countries. The effort and result showed the world community's shared responsibility in conserving cultural sites. The success here led to other campaigns to safeguard cultural sites in other parts of the world such as Venice and its lagoons in Italy, the Archeological Ruins of Moenjodaro in Pakistan and restoring the Brobudur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. The work on the draft Convention then progressed in earnest, until its adoption by UNESCO in 1972.
The Convention sets out in the first instance to protect cultural and natural heritage from the threat of loss and destruction through various means. This is stated early in the preambular statement of the Convention. The Convention recognizes that "the cultural heritage and the natural heritage are increasingly threatened with destruction not only by the traditional causes of decay, but also by changing social and economic conditions which aggravate the situation with even more formidable phenomena of damage and destruction".
The Convention recognizes that there are some cultural and natural heritage sites which are important to humanity. These are important to us of the present and should be preserved and protected for those of the future. In this sense they are of outstanding universal value. And that the destruction or loss of thee sites would lead to impoverishment of the heritage of humanity. This is also made clear in the preambular statements of the Convention. "...that deterioration or disappearance of an item of the cultural or natural heritage constitutes a harmful impoverishment of the heritage of all the nations of the world".
The Convention recognizes that the protection of world cultural and natural heritage requires the collective efforts of all nations of the world. "...in view of the magnitude and gravity of the new dangers threatening them, it is incumbent on the international community as a whole to participate in the protection the cultural and natural heritage of outstanding universal value, by the granting of collective assistance which, although not taking the place of the State concerned, will serve as an efficient complement thereto".
While the Convention recognizes the importance of international collective action, at the same time it recognizes that the onus is really on the state parties. This is stated in Article 4 of the Convention. "Each state party to this Convention recognizes that the duty of ensuring the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations of the cultural and natural heritage referred to in Articles 1 and 2 and situated on its territory, belongs primarily to that State. It will do all it can to this end, to the utmost of its own resources and, where appropriate, with any international assistance and co-operation, in particular, financial, artistic, scientific and technical, which it may be able to obtain".
Article 5 of the Convention states clearly the responsibilities of each State Party, to ensure that effective and active measures are taken for the protection, conservation and presentation of the cultural and natural heritage situated in their territories. These responsibilities are presented in five parts; and which cover such matters as; developing national policies for the protection of cultural and natural heritage; services or institutions/organizations for the protection, conservation and presentation of heritage; the development of scientific and technical capacities for study and research in protection and conservation techniques and methods; and "(d) to take the appropriate legal, scientific, technical, administrative and financial measures necessary for the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and rehabilitation of this heritage".
In situations where States Parties are not able to carry out conservation and protection work on their natural and cultural heritage, the Convention has a mechanism to assist through the World Heritage Committee, which is established under the Convention.
Since its adoption, many states parties have successfully posted both cultural and natural heritage sites on the List. By the end of 2006, a total 851 properties have been inscribed on the World Heritage List, all of which are recognized to have outstanding universal value. Of these; 660 are cultural sites, 166 natural sites and 25 are mixed (both cultural and natural). Also by the end of 2006, a total of 184 States parties had ratified the Convention.
Papua New Guinea as a member state of UNESCO ratified the convention in 1997. At almost the same time, the decision was made to have some cultural and natural heritage sites nominated for world heritage listing. Consistent with the World Heritage Committee (WHC) process, a tentative list of eight sites was sent to the World Heritage Center for consideration. This list consisted of both cultural and natural sites and which was submitted in September 2006. Included in this list was Kuk, an agricultural site just outside of Mount Hagen in the Western Highlands Province. In World Heritage language, this is a "cultural landscape".
Kuk comprised mainly of trenches which had been used for taro gardening sometime in the distant past. Carbon dating suggests that agricultural activity in the area was evident from about 7,000 years to 10,000 years ago. This would make this site one of the oldest agricultural sites in the world; in the same category as Southwest Asia (9,500years), Central Mexico (9,000 years) and China (8,500 years.
This very early dating of Kuk deems it qualifies for that consideration as being of "outstanding universal value", which is an important consideration for inscription on the World Heritage List. In this connection the nomination document of Kuk says; "The early agricultural site at Kuk is of outstanding universal value because it evidences a significant stage of technological independent development of humanity worldwide, namely the early and independent development of agriculture, specifically Pacific agriculture. Indeed Papua New Guineans were among the world's earliest agriculturalists".
Apart from it antiquity, Kuk holds evidence forms of early agricultural practices, such as asexual reproduction of plants and that some of these plants may have actually originated from New Guinea. "Today most of the traditional staples of New Guinea (and Pacific) agriculture are vegetatively propagated, including bananas, taro, yam, and sugarcane. As well as archeological evidence from Highlands New Guinea, recent genetic and phytogeographic evidence suggests that many of these plants originated in the New Guinea region and were domesticated there first".
Clearly, Kuk has now put Papua New Guinea on the world map, at least that of culture and environment conservation. A successful inscription of Kuk on the World Heritage List will be a big step for Papua New Guinea, not only in the direction of international natural and cultural conservation but also at the national level. It has inspired the realization of the importance of national heritage, both natural and cultural.

 

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